A wire harness routed in a vehicle is configured by a cluster of numerous electric wires. A proportion of shielded wires in the electric wires configuring the wire harness has increased accompanying a sharp increase in electrically controlled components being mounted in vehicles. The shielded wires must have a grounded metal shielding layer and, when the shielded wires increase in number, shielding-added splices that connect the shielding layer to a drain wire increase in number. A wire harness connected to a large electronic control unit includes numerous shielded wires, and thus the splices branching off from the wire harness are also numerous and are likely to cluster at a terminal portion of the wire harness.
Meanwhile, in a space where a restricted path and prevention of interference with other components are necessary, the wire harness routed in the vehicle passes through an interior of a molded resin protector. In a case where numerous splices branch from the wire harness, the splices are preferably accommodated in the interior of the protector.
Conventionally, in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. H08-205360, the present applicants provide a protector 100 capable of accommodating splices, as shown in FIGS. 7(A), (B), and (C). Only a branch line 111 having a spliced portion 120 passes through the protector 100, the branch line 111 branching from a trunk line 110 of a wire harness. A spliced portion holder 103 is aligned in an entire width direction in a center portion of a wire pathway 101 within the protector 100. The spliced portion 120 of each branch line is passed through the respective spliced portion holder 103 and separately accommodated.